Journal Title Search

First, I need to qualify this tutorial by saying that this topic, at least to my knowledge, is specific only to Innovative Library’s. Also, the information presented in this tutorial is from my presentation, “Automating Database Maintenance”, done at the 2001 Northwest Innopac User Group Conference on October 9, 2001. With that said, III libraries have been given the option of providing a Journal Title Search within their electronic catalogs. However, the problem that we run into is old data, and maintaining the integrity of new data. So at Oregon State University, we solved this problem in two steps. First, we extracted all the old serial data, and then using MarcEdit and a VBScript, we added 229 fields to all current records. Second, rather then have our staff add 229 fields to records, once a month a list is created in the system pulling out serial records without a 229 or 222 field. These records are then analyzed and editing using MarcEdit and a VBScript.

Steps

1. Create a list in your III system using the following criteria: a) Bibliographic List, b) MARC Tag 222="", c) MARC Tag 229="", and d) BLvL=s
2. Export review list using the Read/Write MARC records utility.
3. Run the below script named jounal_title.vbs
4. Using the Read/Write utility; re-import the edited MARC records back into your system. Be sure to test load the records. Since each library can customize their III setups, some assumptions made in the following script may be incorrect for your system. It is the users responsibility to know their system well enough to make this judgement.

VBScript

The VBScript below performs the following functions:

• It reconstructs the OCLC 001. In our III system, an OCLC number must have the following format: 3 proceeding alpha characters followed by the numeric number. III however, throws out the 3 alpha characters and indexes the OCLC number. When exporting records form the system, the 001 field is exported only with the numeric characters. Since III expects the 001 field to contain 3 alpha characters, the exported 001 data is incomplete and would be flags as an invalid field. This script fixes this problem by adding the alpha characters back to the 001 field. (Note, if your III system is set to treat the 001 as string data, this section of code will need to be edited)
• Using a pre-defined set of criteria, the VBScript will add a 229 using one of the following fields: 130, 240, or 245.
• When exporting III data, Innovative's Read/Write utility will add terminating punctuation to fields 1xx-899. This script will remove unwanted punctuation from a set of pre-defined fields.
• The VBScript will remove all item data not necessary for reloading, and will create a 949-command string to let III know what record to overlay on.

Download the script